


Lightning Strikes

by sinfuldesire_archivist



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, First Time, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-15
Updated: 2010-07-15
Packaged: 2018-09-06 07:53:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8741359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinfuldesire_archivist/pseuds/sinfuldesire_archivist
Summary: Companion piece to "And the Thunder Rolls". Dean had always thought storms were a cruel joke from Mother Nature. Opinions change.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the Sinful Desire archivists: this story was originally archived at [Sinful-Desire.org](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Sinful_Desire). To preserve the archive, we began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2016. We e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [Sinful Desire collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/sinfuldesire/profile).
> 
>  **Author's notes:** Kripke and CW own everything Supernatural....too bad.

  
Author's notes: I origianlly wrote "Thunder Rolls" on a whim, and it was meant to be a stand-alone. But, 'cause the guys are like two sides of a coin, I had to tell Dean's side too.  


* * *

Dean despised storms. They put him on edge, made his neck tingle and his hair stand on end. They distracted him, and on a hunt that was the last thing he needed. He needed to be on his A game all the time, had to watch out for Sammy. It had stormed the night his mom had died in Sammy’s nursery, and when Sam headed for school in California. Dean had felt the storm in him that night too, but hadn’t said anything, because it was what Sam had wanted and that’s what mattered, not that a hurricane was shredding Dean’s soul. So no, Dean was not a fan of storms. They brought sorrow and sadness. 

Looking back, there were only 2 storms that Dean had ever enjoyed. The first was when Sammy had come home. The flashes and rumbles had frightened Sam, so Dean had stayed with him all that first night, setting a pattern for years to come. Whenever the weather had been turbulent, Dean would let Dad hunt alone, so he could stay at the hotel with Sammy and keep him company. He was the older brother, that’s the way things went. But the second storm was Dean’s favourite. He and Sam had stopped at a motel with familiar nondescript furnishings somewhere off Smalltown USA as usual, but things had been tense. Dean had almost reached his breaking point; seeing Sam every day, being with him every day was like showing a starving dog a sirloin steak and keeping it just out of reach; and his year left was dwindling quickly. To top it off there was the familiar itch at the base of Dean’s neck, signalling a bitch of a storm on the way. Sam had noticed the tension, would’ve had to be blind and deaf not to, but he’d kept quiet. Then an argument about some stupid thing or another had set them off just as the first lightning streaked across the sky. Memories got a little fuzzy for a bit after that, but for the first time in a long, long time the storm didn’t bother Dean. It was as if Mother Nature or whatever deities existed had decided to finally cut Dean a break and say ‘hey, stop fighting it, there’s no need anymore, you can have everything you want’ and the important details were seared in Dean’s brain. The way the mirror across the room reflected the lightning across Sam’s skin, marked and scarred in the same way his own was. How Sam’s cries had melded with the rumbles of thunder, making them seem like one continuous moan. Dean knew he’d talked to Sam, but it had been ramblings, and if anyone had asked what he’d said they wouldn’t get an answer. What Dean had said wasn’t important. All that mattered was that he’d fallen asleep wrapped in and around his Sammy. Of course when he woke up, and realized what had happened hadn’t been a dream he’d done his expected self-tormenting. But Sam had taken care of it in his usual take-charge manner, restraining Dean long enough to get it through to him that _this_ was the new status quo, so Dean would just have to deal with it. Things were pretty natural after that, because hey, Dean wasn’t about to argue. 

Dean had never really understood Sam’s fascination with storms, except that it made sense if you thought about all of the emotions running around under his surface. See that was the thing, Sam usually looked calm and collected, but underneath a multitude feelings churned. Dean on the other hand showed others only what he wanted them to see. When people looked, they saw a personality as volatile as a spark near gasoline. But beneath his exterior he could be cold minded and calculating. It’s what had kept him and Sammy alive in many of their hunts. And even though Dean still didn’t care for storms, he had begun to find a new respect for them. Then Lilith had come to collect her dues, and the storm of Hell was more than any person could take. The never ending shrieks howling like gale winds had finally pushed Dean off the rack, but the storm of guilt inside him didn’t abate. It didn’t disappear after he had dug his way out of the earth either. It wasn’t until he and Bobby had found Sam in the random hotel room that the winds had calmed themselves. When Sam had left with Ruby was even worse. To know that his brother had chosen to trust a demon over him cut Dean like needs of ice rain. He’d said the same words their dad had said when Sam had left for Stanford to see if Sam could still be hurt, to see if he was still the Sammy he knew. And after they’d gotten out of the convent, and off that plane, Dean knew that nothing would be the same. Knowing how fragile the trust between them was, and knowing the kind of person Sam had been (and who Dean hoped he still was) Dean didn’t instigate anything between them again, though it nearly killed him. Instead he’d pulled on his poker face and gone on as if nothing had ever started. 

Despite his aversion to thunderous weather, Dean would never have that calm could be worse. He had leaned against the Impala in that cemetery, watching Sam open the gate to Hell, and when Sam looked back at him his eyes were deal calm, flat. Nothing had ever terrified Dean more than that lack of expression, of life; not even the horrors he’d seen and done in the pit himself. When Sam and Adam were gone, Dean felt like Sam’s eyes had looked. But he found himself craving, praying for storms; to hear the crack of thunder and see the flash of lightning, if only for a link back to Sam. He’d eventually found his way to Lisa, just like he’d promised Sam, and she was understanding; never asked anything about what had happened, offering only support in her silence. 

Whenever storms rolled through now, Dean would sit and watch them with Ben. The little guy reminded Dean of Sam somehow, despite the complete lack of physical resemblance. Maybe it was the way he’d ask questions about anything and everything, or how he’d make jokes so similar to Sam’s it was eerie. Tonight, as they sat in front of the living room window, Dean listened to Ben tell him how he was planning to put glue in his friend’s shampoo as a prank, taking Dean back to the prank wars with Sam and Nair in shampoo. Dean threw his head back, laughing a real laugh for the first time in what felt like years. A flash of lightning lit up the night sky and Dean’s hunter instincts were on high alert, his heart stopped for a moment; then began to really beat again, in time to the reverberating pulse of the thunder outside. There’d been someone outside in the yard, he knew it, and the figure, just as he knew now that storms could be calming, soothing too. He’d find him again. There was hope. That was all that mattered. 


End file.
